1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle parking brake device operable to brake a vehicle wheel when a parking lever operatively mounted on a bar-type steering handle for angular movement between release and actuated positions is pivoted to the actuated position at the time the vehicle is desired to be parked.
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is well known that off-road vehicles such as buggies and some motor scooters, for example, are provided with not only a standard brake device for braking a vehicle wheel during normal run of the vehicle, but also a parking brake device that is used to lock the vehicle wheel during the parking of the vehicle. The Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2001-63675, published Mar. 13, 2001, discloses a first prior art parking brake device of this kind, which includes a parking lever mounted on a grip of the steering handle for pivotal movement between release and actuated positions about a pivot axis lying vertically. The parking lever employed in this known parking brake device is, when pivotally moved to the actuated position to lock the vehicle wheel, positioned at a rearwardly lower location of the grip of the handle and on one side of the grip opposite to the brake lever that is positioned forwardly of the grip with respect to the direction of forward run of the vehicle.
According to this known parking brake device, the parking lever is so arranged and so positioned that when a rider trying to start the vehicle extends his or her hand to the grip of the steering handle, his or her hand can compulsively touch the parking lever that is positioned at the rearwardly lower location of the handle grip, thus calling an attention to the rider that the parking lever is then held in the actuated position. Once the rider is so called to the attention, the rider can recognize himself or herself that he or she must move the parking lever to the release position.
The Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2004-276649, published Oct. 7, 2004, discloses a second prior art parking brake device including a parking lever pivotally disposed at a position adjacent a clutch lever that is pivotally mounted forwardly on a grip of the steering handle. In this second prior art parking brake device, a release input portion of the parking brake is so positioned as to confront a surface portion of a free end of the clutch lever with respect to the direction, in which the clutch lever is pulled in, when the parking lever is held at the actuated position. The parking lever can be pivoted towards the release position when the release input portion, which is represented by a slant surface, is pressed in contact with the surface portion of the free end of the clutch lever, thus allowing the parking brake device to be automatically released.
However, the first prior parking brake device has been found having the following problem. Specifically, it is quite often that when the rider trying to start the vehicle has his or her hand place on the grip of the steering handle touches the parking lever, the rider may not so much feel a sense of incompatibility with the way he or she does regularly on the same occasion, and, accordingly, the rider may start the vehicle forcibly without noticing that the parking brake device is actuated. Once this occurs, not only may the life time of the parking brake device be reduced, but the engine will be excessively loaded. In particular, when the rider is hasty or wears thick gloves, the rider does, with high possibility, fail to recognize that the parking lever is held at the actuated position. This is also true even where the vehicle is of a type equipped with an automatic clutch and is therefore equipped with only the brake lever and without the clutch lever, because in this type of vehicle the grip of the steering handle is not required to be strongly gripped at the time of start of the vehicle.
On the other hand, the second prior art parking brake device has such a problem that the parking brake device may be unintentionally released when the rider touches the clutch lever unconsciously while the parking lever has been set to the actuated position during the parking. Also, this type of parking brake device is easily released by misbehavior to the parked vehicles.